“God created man . . . and God fell in love . . .” (Wes Stafford in Just a Minute)

From my 2012 Journal. That’s a stunning statement. In my head I’ve always known “God is love” and that God loves me. After all, we grew up singing, “Jesus loves me” and quoting John 3:16 “For God so loved the world . . . ” But were those just words, a fact, a piece of information, a truth with no questions asked, or a head knowledge only?

To say someone “fell in love” implies emotion and deep affection. There’s a difference between saying, “I know Scott loves me,” and “He fell in love with me.” I know about God’s agape love (sacrificial love; doing-the-right-and-moral-thing kind of love). But what do I know about His emotional love? Is it similar to what I feel for my girls or for my grandsons? I delighted in watching their every move as they turned over, took their first steps, spoke their first words. Is this how God feels toward me?

Somehow the thought that I’m a sinner stands in the way of accepting God’s emotional love for me. It’s time to take the label off.

I may be a corrupted or scratched-up CD, but I’m not a corrupted file. I’m fixable! (The world at the time of Noah—now that was a corrupted file!)

God loves the song that I sing. I’m his favorite album—scratches and all. He doesn’t get irate when I fail to perform at my best. He’s the originator, the creator of the CD, and He has a scratch-less copy on His hard drive. He made a perfect copy, and then Satan’s tools and my pride, stubbornness, and rebellion corrupted the music. Someday He’ll make another copy of me—back to perfect, good as new, and I won’t need the medium anymore. The music will play in the air, crystal clear, scratch-less.

God fell in love with me—my music—because He’s the songwriter, and He loves His creation. I came out of His heart. “Yes, Jesus loves me.”

2021 Update: After reading the book Imagine Heaven by John Burke, I have a new appreciation and understanding of God’s all-encompassing, unconditional, healing, gentle love. The thought makes my heart sing.